It's Only Rain
by Cadel
Summary: Sokka never allowed anyone to know about his bending. So he hid it from his friends, his family and himself. He was just the sarcastic, meat-eating, idea guy after all.
1. Chapter 1

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It's Only Rain  
CADEL

* * *

[CHAPTER 1]

* * *

Sokka was nine when it first happened.

By accident and unintentional.

It should have been a great day, he should have been boasting to his mother and father and sister. He should have used it as an excuse to celebrate, to show-off, to make everyone see he was just as special as Katara. He was magic too.

That day should have been a lot of things.

But in the end, all thoughts of self-inflated worth came crashing down when the universe decided to play a joke on Sokka's arrogance, his childish pride.

Sokka was nine when it first happened. By accident and unintentional.

That day should have been a lot of things. And it was. It was all the things that made Sokka become the young warrior that became the Avatar's companion, the leader of a rag-tag group of idealistic children and a hero of the One-Hundred-Year-War.

Sokka was nine. It was an accident. It was unintentional.

But it didn't change that fact that it was the day he became a _murderer_.

III

When he looked back on it, he remembered the jealousy.

But at that age, Sokka didn't know what it was, couldn't identify with his underdeveloped mind that what he was feeling was deep, deep envy every time his little sister did 'magic'.

He supposed it was because the South Water Tribe shared everything.

Sokka remembered frequently forgetting that there was a world outside of the village. In quantity, the South Pole was so overwhelmingly weak that they were repeatedly seen as an infinitesimal part of the world – lost behind a screen of snow and ice. In quality, the Southern people were monolithic glaciers carving into earth and shaping mountains. A slow, quiet strength only noticed when they were long gone but their mark irreversible. They were small yes, but because of that, they were family.

Not a cold palace with ridged tradition like their Northern sister tribe.

Not a faceless, autonomous metropolis like the Earth kingdom.

Or the hellish, military regime the Fire people liked to call a 'nation'.

Their lack of might was paradoxically the reason for their strength. Growing up in a village with a population barely over one-hundred made them tight-knit and solid. It was harmonious and simple with very little to desire considering the people of the Southern Water Tribe shared everything.

It was because of this, Sokka didn't know what jealousy was when it hit him. All his six-year-old self knew was that it was a heavy, ugly sensation that ate away from the inside out. Worse, it was directed at his younger sister.

The look on his parents face when Katara showed them her floating water rings was equal parts pride and wonder. Like seeing sun after months of winter, that gold light blazing the ice with new life.

Hope.

Sokka didn't understand that the tightness around his father's eyes wasn't just laugh lines but signs of justified worry.

But for a six-year-old boy, his entire world narrowed down to the fact that his sister had something he didn't.

Sokka just watched on with curiosity, his bending-envy not quite manifesting yet because like all life on the South Pole, everything was shared. It was a juvenile and somewhat naïve expectation that this too would be shared. That because Katara was his sister, his family and a fellow water tribesman, her bending ability would be _his_ as well – that surely Sokka would be bestowed the same gift. It was his right.

Bull-headed certainty.

Guileless arrogance.

III

When Sokka grew older, he would wonder how he ever had such narrow, self-directed expectations.

III

His shy wonder at Katara's water bending slowly bled into impatience as the months dragged on.

And then years.

Yet his bending that he'd so confidently knew he would have, never came. Water remained just that – water. Not a magical extension of his heart as Katara would poetically put it. Eventually envy bloomed into outright jealously and he could never quite come to terms that his sister's 'freaky' magic was something he wanted too. So like a child he stubbornly denied it and ridiculed Katara's near obsessive need to play with her element.

"It's not playing Sokka!" Katara would scold, clearly offended her brother could use such a juvenile term for something she thought sacred.

"Yes." He scowled "Yes it is."

"I'm training. This is a difficult and delicate art and–"

"And it's special, and wonderful and magical and _blah blah blah_. Boring."

"Sokka!"

"Come on, let go do something interesting."

With a huff she would turn away when her brother was like this. "Later, I'm not in the mood for you to lead me out into the wastelands and get us nearly killed like last time."

"First of all, we didn't die and secondly, finding those berries was worth it."

"Only 'cause you think with your stomach."

"Hey! We live in the South Pole. The _South Pole._ Fire Berries is a novelty round here." He gave it some thought. "Actually, any vegetation that doesn't resemble lichen or cold-snot-on-a-rock is pretty damn spectacular."

His sister would wave her hands in that ridiculous manner and ignore her brother in favour of her precious tasteless, odourless, aqueous friend.

Sokka would later insist that he wasn't bored and he wasn't missing his sister's company.

He would also insist that he didn't have the dry, acidic taste of resentment and malcontent bleeding into his heart every time he saw water loopies dance like fireflies in the arctic air.

III

He was right in the end.

He was a bender. Just like his talented sister.

That day should have been a great day. His patience had paid off and his claims of being just as special as Katara were finally justified. But it wasn't.

All he wanted to do was find more Fire Berries in the outer tundra. Instead, Sokka was curled up in a ball on the icesheet, trembling and cold, his parka ripped and a bruise blooming on his cheek. His little solo expedition to find those delicious, hot berries came to a violent end as he watched the body slowly sink through the ice hole with detached horror.

The unforgiving ultramarine blue dragging the corpse down.

He was nine when he first realised he could bend. By accident and completely unintentional.

It was also the day the unsullied, untainted and innocent part of Sokka had perished in that wasteland far from home.

When he trudged back home, shaking and missing his parka, the watertribe boy didn't say anything. He didn't tell his family about his bending. He didn't boast. He didn't ask for a celebration. He didn't tell them about the stranger he met. Didn't tell them about how he lost his gloves and why his face was bruised and why his clothes were torn. Or why his hands didn't stop shaking for days afterwards.

His family couldn't know that the boy that came home that day was no longer the boy that left that morning.

He never ate Fire Berries after that.

They looked too much like the pearls of blood that pooled on frozen snow, dripping, dripping, _dripping_ into the icesheet along with the dead man he let sink to the bottom of the ocean.

III

"Aang…"

The monk had a pork bun halfway in his mouth while Momo circle like a vulture above his head, ready to pluck the savoury treat from his masters face.

"Oh, hey Sokka!" He gave a nervous giggle as an embarrassed flush crawled up his neck. "I suppose you caught me red-handed. I know we're not supposed to raid the royal kitchens at night…but you want to share some pork buns with me?"

The young Avatar held out the warm food, his smile bright and his offer just as sweet.

Sokka shook his head, unable to stomach the idea of food while he had cold stones rolling in his belly.

"No…" The older boy clenched his hands into tight fists as he scrambled for the right words. "Ah, can you take a walk with me? I need to talk to you about something."

Aang nodded and smiled at him with all his teeth. Honest and earnest.

And there was a flash of guilt he couldn't quite crush because Sokka knew he would be the one to take that smile away.

.

.

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* * *

Note: A few untold and unwitnessed secret moments is Sokka's life.

(A rewrite of one of my old stories.)

Please leave a review and thank you for reading!

CADEL


	2. Chapter 2

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It's Only Rain  
CADEL

* * *

[CHAPTER 2]

* * *

The fire nation actually looked kind of lovely under warm lanterns and peace banners.

The war was over and what followed was a swirl of busy rebuilding and political negotiations. Things were finally moving forward. _Hope_ was an alien sentiment to all that endured the hundred-year-war, so much so that many were still waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it had been months and the world was – tentatively and cautiously – healing.

Sokka thought he would too. He hoped he would. Dreamed he would.

But the barb wire in his chest had yet to disappear.

The water tribe boy tried to ignore it, but he could no longer dismiss the decay that had been festering since he was still clutching onto his mother's dead hand.

It had to stop.

So Sokka turned to Aang who was playfully pulling faces at his creature and that guilt he tried to ignore flared up like a cold acid burn. He would have to do it tonight. If he didn't, he might never muster the courage to try again and he knew that there would be begging involved. There was also a stinging certainty that his friend will never look at him the same again.

So Sokka sucked in his courage and turned to the monk.

"Aang I need your help."

III

It was Sokka's mother who found out first.

He managed to hide his abilities for months and the task was simple enough. He just had to continue his routine and make no deviations in his behaviour and it was sort of easy when you're a child. Just enjoy yourself and _don't bend._

But after a few weeks Sokka realised there was something wrong.

Sometimes his hands would tingle, his bones would ache and his skin would yearn to flex those fingers and make his element _dance._ There was a _compulsion, a_ n urge, an itch that _had_ to be scratched. The need to bend.

When Katara first discovered her bending, she tried to explain to her brother why she was always bending and playing and never tire of it. It just led to more talk about spirits and instinct and the cosmic need to answer back to the elements. It all just sounded like mumbo-jumbo rubbish so he paid little attention to it. But then he started to hear it. Feel it. Sense it with every fibre in his being.

He crushed it down.

Don't do it. Don't bend. Don't let anyone know _what you did._ And he didn't for the longest time but eventually that strange, whispering, _unnatural_ compulsion bloomed violently in his gut and Sokka knew that it wouldn't be denied.

So one morning, young Sokka woke up unnaturally early, unable to continue sleeping because his body just ached and ached and _ached_.

It wasn't like muscle pain from rowing the canoe for too long. It wasn't like a tooth ache or and head ache. He knew his body was revolting against him in some way, screaming at him but he couldn't even pin-point where, there was no physical place where he could say 'mum it hurts here'.

So little Sokka left his home at the crack of dawn before anyone was up and he slowly marched off to the fishing holes.

He sat there for long minutes, unmoving and terribly uncertain.

By the time the sun had risen and the sky had bled from cold grey to warm blue, Sokka bolstered his courage and even managed to feel some excitement. It was just a bit of bending. Wasn't he supposed to want to do this? Wasn't he supposed to give in to his element? He could do this and it might even be as fun as Katara made it out to be.

Feeling the blooming excitement in his chest, Sokka lifted his hand above the small pool of water and closed his eyes.

His forehead scrunched and his brows furrowed while sweat beaded out of his skin with frustrated exertion.

But nothing happened.

He tried again, this time trying to remember how his sister moved her hands and twisted her fingers and after long minutes the water remained unchanged, completely unmoved by Sokka's command.

So he tried again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

III

Eventually he did manage to water bend. Only once.

And immediately afterwards he collapsed and started screaming.

III

His little orbs of floating water splattered to the snow as Sokka folded into himself. His hands were burning and his lung tightened and suddenly he was unable to take in air. That ache in his bones suddenly didn't feel like an ache anymore. It was a malicious, unforgiving fire. It didn't feel like anything he could describe. He just wanted it to stop.

So Sokka curled up into a small ball, clutching his traitorous fingers twitching uncontrollably and held his tongue, biting off another cry. And when he closed his eyes, all he could see were the dead, cold eyes of the man he watched fall under the ice. The man he _let_ die. The man he killed with his bare hands and his impotent bending.

That was how his mother found him.

Screaming into the snow and seeing nothing but blue skin rotting behind his eyelids.

III

Sokka could never quite bend properly after that.

III

His father talked about Nuka sometimes.

Nuka was Hakoda's childhood friend. A boy-man that was more animal than human. He would sail to the farthest glaciers and climb the most treacherous cliffs just to get food and supplies for the village. He was a good man. He was reliable. But all that came crashing down in the height of one polar winter.

Nuka had gone missing for nine days.

Everyone in the village had searched frantically for him and all the children would huddle and wait for their parents to bring their friend home. Sokka's father would glaze out when he recounted it and this was the part of the story where Katara would cry and Sokka would say that Nuka was dead. Hakoda would shake his head and give his children a small smile.

"He didn't die son." Hakoda would reveal while soothing his daughter.

"But…he was out there for _nine_ days! Alone! During winter!" Sokka insisted.

The very idea was unfathomable to a child of ice and snow.

"He was." He pulled his children closer. "But like I'd mentioned before, Nuka had been marked as one of the most durable member of our tribe before he hit twelve. Not even a man yet and Nuka had been treated like an adult because he was useful. Sometimes…I think Nuka didn't know what he gave up to be a provider for our tribe at such a young age."

Hakoda would sigh and five-year-old Sokka couldn't tell that his father was troubled.

"Nuka was a prodigy."

"Prodigy?" Sokka would ask confused.

"It means he's really good at something, better than everyone else and it makes him special." His father explained.

"What was he good at?" Katara would squeak sleepily from under her father's fur coat.

"He knew the land. He understood the ocean. He _talked_ to the elements in a way that even Gran Gran couldn't. He did a great deal for the village in hard times of war because Nuka always knew where to find food even in the coldest seasons and where to find shelter in the most blinding blizzards. We couldn't tell how he knew these things. He just did."

"Is that how he survived being out in the wasteland for nine days by himself?" Sokka inched closer while his sister starting nodding off to sleep.

"I don't know." Hakoda would look sad at these moments too. "On the tenth day, Nuka came stumbling out of the night like some kind of lost ghost. We didn't even recognise him; he was barely even standing at that point."

Sokka would imagine a slow moving silhouette crawling towards the village in the dead of night, barely human and wraith-like. He shivered.

"So what happened to him? Where was he all that time?"

His father would shake his head.

"No one knows. Nuka never spoke a word after that day."

"But he was okay?"

His father didn't confirm or deny. "He never went hunting or fishing or sailing after that. He became deathly afraid of water and ice and snow. The very sight of the ocean would have him in a crazed panic attack."

Sokka couldn't imagine being that afraid of the ocean and the snow. It was ridiculous. They lived in the _South Pole_.

"Where is he now then? How come I've never seen him in the village?"

His would kiss his son's hair and sigh. "He left the South Pole many years ago. I'm afraid I don't where he is or how he's doing…but I think it was good he didn't stay here." Hakoda would pause, his eyes far away. "Nuka never really came back that day. Parts of him had been taken by the ice and snow and I think there's a part of him that's still walking blind in that wasteland."

It was then that his mother would come in and usher her children to their beds.

III

When Sokka grew older, he realised some part of him was probably still stumbling and crawling in that wasteland. Even after he grew up and even after he saved the entire world.

He couldn't outrun it.

Just like poor, poor Nuka.

III

It was Sokka's mother who found out first.

She found him screaming into the snow after his attempt at bending and it was hard not to give in and tell her when she looked at him with such abject worry.

"Don't tell anyone." That was the first thing he said to her. Not even an explanation.

His mother wrapped her parka around her shaking son as he rolled into himself, waiting for the ache in his hands to disappear. Kya kissed her son's hair as she physically tried to will away his pain, confused and unsure what it all meant.

"Darling, why didn't you tell us? We would have understood."

The young boy ignored the taste of rust in his mouth.

"It doesn't work, it doesn't listen to me. I can't do it like Katara does!" Little Sokka hiccupped as he shuffled away from the fishing hole. "I've tried and tried and tried!" He felt hysterical. "…there's something wrong."

His mother huddled him away from the frozen pool, away from the water that tempted her son in all the wrong ways.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with you." She pulled Sokka's face directly in front of her own, and demanded the words to sink in through her stare alone. "There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong." _There's nothing wrong._

But there was. His mother only knew about his impotent bending. She didn't know about the _rest_. The guilt and the horror of what he'd done _with_ his bending.

"Don't tell anyone." Sokka frantically pleaded. He had to make his mother understand. "Don't tell father, don't tell _Katara_. Don't tell anyone I can bend. Promise!"

He knew he was begging but his mother nodded, unsure what to say and overwhelmed by her son's demand. So she did the only she could and said:

"Alright love, I promise."

In the end, Kya kept her son's promise to her grave.

III

"Aang I need your help."

There wasn't even a pause and his friend replied back immediately with, "Sure, what can I do?"

Sokka turned away from the balcony that overlooked the sprawling nation of fire and he floundered with what to say. He had to word it right.

"You're the Avatar and you're the only person that can do this. I ask you as a comrade, as a friend and as a brother to grant me this one request."

Momo settled on Aang's shoulder and the monk tilted his head, a curious look bleeding into his eyes. Young as he was, Sokka could tell Aang could sense the weight in his words.

"Alright…I do my best then." Now he could see the concern in the monk's grey eyes.

The moon casted hard shadows across Sokka's face like war paint and he stood up straighter and squared his shoulders. Now or never.

"Aang." There was unforgiving certainty in his voice. "I want you to take my bending away."

.

.

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* * *

Note: The mystery around Sokka's past is slowly getting revealed. Thank you for reading!

CADEL


	3. Chapter 3

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It's Only Rain  
By CADEL

* * *

[CHAPTER 3]

* * *

He watched as Aang's face turned from bewildered to confusion.

"I…" The monk furrowed his brows. "I don't understand."

Sokka repeated again with even more conviction. "I want you to take my bending away."

There was a moment were all the monk did was blink at him.

Then he was suddenly laughing, not his full open-mouth kind of laugh but a giggly kind of chuckle.

"I almost thought you meant it for a moment." Aang stroked Momo's tail playfully while looking over the city. "Urgh, I don't think those pork buns were completely vegetarian and why call them 'pork buns' when it's got no pork?" He rubbed his stomach. "I don't think they're settling in my stomach right. Should have just given the rest to Momo."

The lemur chirped in displeasure.

"So what _did_ you want to speak to me about Sokka?" Aang asked as Momo perched on top of the monk bald head.

Sokka's eyes never left the Airbender.

"I want you to take my bending away." He repeated. "Like you did with Fire Lord Ozai."

The Airbender just stared at him; any thoughts of cracking a joke were suddenly gone when he watched the hard lines in his friends face.

"Sokka this isn't funny."

"I'm not joking."

"Then…I don't understand." Momo shuffled closer to the monk as if feeling its master's distress. "Why are you saying all of this?"

He suddenly sighed and rubbed his face. "Because Aang, I'm serious about this."

There must have been something is Sokka's voice or his expression because the monk suddenly took a step back. "But Sokka…you're not a bender."

If only.

"I am."

Aang shook his head. "No you're not." He sounded so certain and Sokka didn't blame him. "You've never been able to bend and you never have. We've been travelling the world together for over a year, I'd think I'd know. I'd think _Katara_ would know."

"Katara is the last person that will ever find out, do you hear me?" Sokka suddenly snapped. "And you're right, I've never bended around you or anyone else."

Just around people that would never walk or talk again, Sokka thought bitterly.

It was an unpleasant thing to watch as Aang slowly shuffled back, a strange shade of dawning alarm creeping into his grey eyes. But he couldn't let the monk go now; he needed to finish this, even if that meant _forcing_ him. Looking into Aang's ashen face and wide grey eyes, Sokka knew his request could possibly change their relationship forever. It was hard to remember when he had last seen that look of abject horror.

Guilt churned violently in his stomach, but he was unrepentant.

He wanted this, he _needed_ it and he would force Aang if he had too.

"Aang, look at me!" Sokka nearly grabbed the younger boy by the shoulders. "I…I need this. I really need you to do this for me alright? _Please._ "

"You're not a bender." Aang repeated but it wavered with uncertainty and undiluted bafflement. "I can't take it away." He took another step back. "Because you're not a bender."

 _You're not a bender._

III

"You're not a bender." Katara would huff with all the annoyance an eight-year-old could muster. "You wouldn't understand Sokka."

But he _was_ a bender. And yet he still didn't understand. But he wasn't ever going to tell her that. In the end Sokka liked that he lived firmly in reality without all the mystic nonsense screwing with his head.

Nine-year-old Sokka sniffed at his sister.

"Whatever. You can keep your magic and I'll keep my logic."

"You're just jealous."

And she would stick out her tongue while bubbles of water glowed in the arctic sunlight above their heads.

"Pfft! As if!" He'd brush her comment away and would urge her to leave the bending alone and help him with the chores. "Now can you stop playing with those stupid puddles and help me clean Gran Gran's socks? Because honestly, they reek so bad I'm starting to taste it in my _eyeballs_."

Katara would roll her eyes and put her mittens back on.

"I'm helping mum with dinner, so you're on your own with those socks."

Sokka would then yell at his sister with fraternal betrayal as she giggled away from him, a trail of beautiful ice glowing under her footsteps like blooming starbursts.

III

Life had been good for a while, even after his mother found out about his bending and Sokka slowly managed to push all the horrible events of the last few months behind him. Not completely of course because he would still find it hard to sleep at night when he dreamt of red ice and rotting skin. But it was close enough.

So yes. It wasn't great. But it was pretty good.

Those days were filled with nostalgic patchwork of blubber soup and seaweed sticks and the honey-sweet voice of his mother singing to him as he lay awake with night terrors.

At some point, that lovely memory of his mother's singing voice turned from sweet to downright _haunting._ As if in some strange way his mother _knew,_ like his mother knew the veil was thinning and she would be called away. That she could feel her shelf-life expiring.

For the longest time Sokka didn't know why a good memory became so foreboding.

III

Then Sokka turned ten.

And his mother was dead.

III

His world of ice and snow was melting away and leaving him stranded, unsure of his place and unsure of what to do.

And his father was going to war.

Hakoda crouched in front of his son and gently held the boy's ruddy cheeks.

"I don't want you to go dad." Sokka sniffed into his parka.

"I know son."

"At least take me with you!" he demanded, his eyes hot and his hands cold.

"Sokka look at me." He gently commanded. "I won't be here and it'll just be you and your sister so you have to be strong, you have think fast and you have to stay safe. Just like I taught you." The man smiled, his eyes wrinkling but his skin pale.

"But…" he was outright crying now and Sokka found no energy to be ashamed. "Just…can't you stay? You're the chief. Can't you stay while the others go?"

His father shook his head, eyes tender and his hands gentle.

"It's because I'm the chief that I _have_ to go." He brushed the boy's wolf-tail back. "And that means you're the chief's son. _My son_. And that means I leave this village to you. Look after it for me and wait till the day I can come back."

Sokka knew his father was playing on his already growing sense of responsibility and almost hated him for it. But it worked and he said yes. So the boy grabbed his father's fur coat and buried his face in the pelts.

"Look after you sister for me."

And he did.

And then the warriors left.

And he was the only boy left in the Southern Water Tribe.

And it was like that for the next three years.

Katara got worse when it came to mother-henning everyone. Sokka knew she was over compensating for the mother-shaped-hole left in their family that she just couldn't quite fill out. His sister would probably say the same thing about Sokka and his gung-ho need to look after the village in their father's place.

They were two children playing adults.

But they at least did it together.

The village held strong while waiting in a strange limbo as they watched the horizon for their missing men. The mothers, sister and daughters always turned their heads to the ocean, waiting, holding vigil lights like tall pillars, seeking and praying for the loved ones to find their way back home as if their thoughts alone could pull them back like siren calls.

As the only boy in the village, Sokka found it particularly hard to watch. It should have been him on that ship full of warriors but he'd been left behind. So three polar summers came and went and they repeated the same routine again and again and again.

Sokka, not once during that entire time, thought about bending.

Even when his skin burned and his fingers itched and his eyes watched the water like a drowning man. He never responded to the _compulsion_.

He refused to.

III

Then they found a boy in an iceberg.

III

"You're not a bender." Aang shook his head, disbelieving and a little distressed.

"Well I suppose not like you and I don't really feel like one." _Never have._ Sokka's voice was suddenly casual and light. "But yes, I can bend."

"Why…" the younger boy flounder. "Why are you telling me now? Why haven't you told anyone?"

 _Why have you been hiding it?_

"I have my reasons for not telling anyone." Sokka quickly answered. "I just…you're my last resort Aang. Please. Help me."

Yes, he was praying on the monk's natural need to be helpful but Sokka refused to feel bad about it.

"I…" the Avatar looked at his friend and suddenly he sighed but the concern and bafflement remained in the lines of his shoulders. "If you say you're a bender then I believe you."

Sokka felt a small knot loosen in his chest.

" _Thank you._ "

And he really meant it.

The monk sagged a little against the marble pillar and looked at the floor, his eyebrows scrunched in deep thought. A few seconds of silence passed then he turned to look at the watertribe boy with increasing curiosity.

"But if you're a bender isn't that a good thing?" Aang looked overwhelmingly confused. Then there was a sudden smile and Sokka knew what the monk would say. "This is great! Now was can all train and bend together! It's a good thing Sokka!"

What an endearingly naïve thought. Even after fighting the war and growing in leaps and bounds, Aang was still seeing the world through a funnel tinted with vibrant colours only the monk could see. Beautiful, hopeful and sweet. However that was a privilege that only Aang could have because he deserved it. Those colours were only for the Avatar.

In comparison, Sokka's world consisted of a rainbow of greys.

"Not really."

Aang's small smile disappeared. "Why?"

"Because I was never meant to be a bender. I'm the 'idea-guy' with the sword and boomerang." Sokka shook his head and gave a watery smile. "This ability is for you and for Katara and for Toph and for Zuko. But it isn't for _me_." He crossed his arms and looked at his feet. "I just want it gone."

He knew his words would make no sense to Aang or to anyone who actually loved to bend. His words would be blasphemous and utter _wrong_ to them. And he sort of agreed.

"Sokka, this is…this is a big deal. You can't just ask for your bending to be taken away! You don't want that!"

"Yes." Sokka replied unforgiving and firm. "Yes I do. I want you to take my bending away."

Aang reach around to hold onto Momo a little tighter as he stared at Sokka like he had never seen him before.

"I-I _can't_ Sokka." He shook his head. "Why would you want this? Why would anyone want this?"

"I don't expect you to understand Aang."

"Then make me!" Aang suddenly bit out. "I'm the Avatar and I'm also your friend. Make me understand why you want me to _mutilate_ you!"

A little alarmed at the outburst, Sokka stared at his friend before sighing.

"You won't understand _because_ you're the Avatar."

A creature that was worshiped and respected _because_ of his connection to the mystical and magical. Someone like Aang could _never_ understand what it was like to _loath_ who he was. To _hate_ the skin he wore, the power in his veins and blood on his hands.

Aang was suddenly in his personal space.

"Forget about me being the Avatar. I'm asking you because you're my friend. Make me understand."

"I can't." Sokka repeated, losing his fake calm he desperately tried to control.

"Please!"

" _I can't_!"

" _Why?!"_

The watertribe boy pushed right up to the monk's face and growled miserably, "Because I'm a murderer! Because I'm a killer! Because you will _never_ be those things! That's why I can't make you understand!"

Aang opened his mouth then closed it. His eyes wide and bright with too many things Sokka didn't want to see.

"Aang…" He had to make him understand at least this part. "My bending has only ever taken things from people. It's only ever been used to hurt and to _kill._ " Sokka choked on the last word with sour shame. "I can't keep this part me, I need it taken out."

"You're not a killer." Aang replied simply.

Oh, the boy was sweet and the certainty in which he said it made Sokka feel warm and also overwhelmingly small.

"You don't know that." Sokka shook his head sadly. "Just, take it away. Please."

He couldn't see Aang's face because the monk turned away from him.

"…I don't know what to do for you because I can't. I just can't." Aang whispered squishing Momo to his chest.

He looked too young.

And Sokka suddenly felt bad for putting that sad little frown on the monk's face.

He should have just let the boy eat his 'not-pork-but-veggie-bun' in peace. The boy deserved more than being harassed in the middle of the night.

"You know what? I'm sorry." Once again, he really meant it. "You're right. I can't ask this of you. It's too much." A strangled, bitter laugh crawled out of his throat. "I'm going to bed."

Aang made a strange, frustrated, keening noise as he rubbed his bald head while Momo watched them curiously.

"Don't. Don't go." The monk suddenly called out. "I won't be able to sleep if we leave this here."

"Aang don't worry about it." Suddenly Sokka wore his shit-eating-grin that he was so famously known for. "If you could, can you not tell anyone about this? I'd appreciate it." Sokka continue to walk away. "Let's just go to bed."

Spirits, the entire conversation hadn't gone well but then again he didn't expect it to.

With another deep sigh Sokka moved back into the Fire Lord's palace in seek of his warm room and his soft pillow, his neck prickling viciously under the heavy gaze of the Avatar.

III

The next morning Aang went missing.

No matter where they looked and how far they searched, the Avatar was gone.

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.

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* * *

Note: Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think.

Cheers

CADEL


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